The Big PubLove Event – Featuring Penguin and Erin Galloway!

As book bloggers our contacts with publishers are vital. They send us books and we work with them closely on promotional posts for their newest, exciting releases. It’s such a pleasure when we see that often they are just as excited as we are about the books! They’re like us, just with WAY cooler jobs and INFINITELY greater access to the authors we stalk love

Have you ever wondered who is behind sending all of those emails we get from the big houses? What they really do and why the work with bloggers like you and me? Ever wondered what we can improve and what do they like to see us post and maybe… even what do they not like?!?

Well…we’ve wondered those very things and we want to share the answers we’ve dug up with YOU!

So we’ve reached out to our favorite publishers and asked them the questions we know you’ve all been dying to ask (but were perhaps a little too shy to actually voice)!

Over the next few weeks, we will highlight different publishers, publicists and marketing associates from big publishing houses.

This week we have Erin Galloway on the Blog is a Senior Publicist at Penguin. I had the pleasure working with Erin on some great Blog Posts so I am excited having her here today!!

Please welcome Erin:

Erin, thank you so much for joining us today!!! We’re so thrilled to get to give our readers a deeper look into the life of a Penguin Publishing professional!

Could you briefly explain what your job entails and how you are involved with Book Bloggers?
We are senior publicists for the Berkley/NAL imprints at Penguin Group (USA) and we regularly work with bloggers on blog tours, book reviews and promotions.

What do you love most about your job?
Authors and books! We are fortunate to work with many wonderful authors and have bottomless “to be read piles” of fabulous books.

What do you love most about working with Bloggers?
We’re both just readers at heart and that’s why we enjoy working with bloggers—we’re all part of the same community and we all love books. Bloggers are some of the most passionate people we work with and it’s incredibly gratifying to work with people who get as excited about books as we do.

What do you expect from Bloggers when they post a review or a promotional post during a tour?
When we work with bloggers on tours, we just expect that whatever date(s) we agree to for reviews or guest posts the blogger will carry through on. We completely understand life occasionally throws a curveball your way and we only ask that you give us as much advance notice as possible if something needs to change. We’re professionals and we know bloggers are too, so we just like common courtesy all around!

What do you look at when you decide to work with certain bloggers? Pageviews, Followers, Alexa? Design?
We’re mostly looking at a blogger’s reach. We’re in the business of selling books after all, so we’d like to see if that if we’re sending a blogger review copies or asking a blogger to host our author, that the blogger has a wide reach of readers through a combination of their site, Twitter, Facebook and/or Goodreads.com.

4. Sending us one email with a roundup of several books they are interested in as opposed to multiple emails in a 2-3 day period. Makes our lives much easier!

5. Keep us updated on special features they are running or big accomplishments. This lets us know about new ways we can partner with bloggers who already know and enjoy working with.

6. Tell us what they like and don’t like. Trust us, we’d rather pitch you on books that fall within the subgenres you enjoy. If you love urban fantasy but aren’t crazy about historicals, let us know. It makes things easier for everyone.

7. Include their blog in their email signature! Chances are we already know, but we work with A LOT of bloggers, so it’s nice to have that refresher in the email signature, particularly if we’re just starting to work together.

8. Treat us like professionals! Experienced bloggers always address us by name, are clear about why they are contacting us and thank us for our time. We promise we’ll do the same in return for you!

9. Let us know when they will be attending various romance conferences and conventions. If we’re attending the same ones we’re happy to meet up!

Anything you’d like to add?
We really enjoy bloggers’ enthusiasm for books. It makes this community so much fun to work with. Please never lose sight of that!

That was so helpful! I really loved reading Erin’s list of “Our favorite things experienced bloggers do” it tells me a lot about how to approach publicists and what works best for them!

Ahhhh! I LOVE ERIN!!! She’s so fabulous to work with, and I love the list of things she provided that they really look for in bloggers. It’s so nice to have a list like that to refer to, even though I’ve been doing this for a few years, I still find myself unsure at times when approaching publishers, so it’s really great to have a reference like this:)

Hi Erin and Danny! *waves*
First of all, let my start of by saying: WHAT AN INCREDIBLY AWESOME EVENT! 🙂 It is always great to learn more about what publishers like/expect when working with bloggers, even for bloggers who’ve been around for quite some time now! I personally did not have the pleasure of working with Erin (yet?? *hopeful*), but I would certainly LOVE to become one of the tour hosts! I just honestly have no idea how – I think I tried just about anything, from emailing the contacts provided on the website to reaching out via the Tumblr account.

My question for Erin would be: How does one get on your (absolutely magical and incredibly exciting) blog tour host list?

One more question: If I review a book that’s been published more than 6 months ago, should I still send you the link to my post, or is that too late? I always try to review all my books before or close to the publishing date, but it’s not always possible, so just wondering about your preferences!

Thank you so much Erin for taking the time out of your super busy schedule to take part in Danny’s incredible event! 🙂 We all appreciate that!Evie recently posted..Elemental by Antony John [Review]

I’m enjoying this series so much, Danny–thank you for featuring these amazing publishers! I’ve worked with several publicists at Penguin, but I don’t think I’ve worked with Erin yet, so it’s lovely to see her profiled here. It’s so helpful to read tips on how different publishers/people like to stay updated and receive their information, and I love hearing the enthusiasm for books as well.

Hi Danny and Erin!
What a great post. Thanks so much for all the tips. I am happy that I am already doing almost everything that Erin recommends on her list. It is nice to know though what publishers are looking for and what they expect. I know there jobs are busy and I appreciate all the wonderful contacts I have made. I hope to work with Erin sometime in the future. Oh yeah! Excited for a chance to win On Dublin Street. I had the pleasure of working with Samantha back in February for a post for Fire and Ice and it was a wonderful experience. She is terrific! Have a wonderful weekend!

This is a great event! It’s always great to hear from the publishing industry since I’m so interested in that side of the bookish world anyway. It’s wonderful to get a chance to work with the people on the other side of the books. I haven’t had the opportunity to work Erin yet, but it is lovely to read her words today and I hope to work with her super soon. 🙂Asheley Tart (@BookwormAsheley) recently posted..…on Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Hi Erin! What made you want to be a publicist and how did you get your job? I love so many Penguin books but some of my faves are ones by Ally Condie and Richelle Mead! Thanks for this amazing giveaway – I would love to win!

I have read On Dublin Street and I freaking loved that book! I am not sure if it is my favorite penguin… And this post was really cool. I love when there are answers to questions I have wondered myself! Thank you for posting this!ryan snyder recently posted..[Tour] Crimson Flames + Crimson Groves [Reviews +Extra]

Wonderful and informative post..all of the publishing staff at Penguin are wonderful, friendly and make themselves available ..I love working with them. Dublin Street was fantastic and I am excited about the upcoming tour for Down London Road ..thanks for sharing!kimbacaffeinate recently posted..Review: The Prophet by Amanda Stevens

I work with publicists from Penguin all the time. I think I have even worked with Erin! I’m usually more interested in the Roc/Ace titles but Berkley does have a few I love. And all the YA imprints, of course. I know that my experience with the publicists there has been pretty fantastic. I know sometimes things fall through or people quit (or go away for some reason) and that is kind of a pain having to learn how another publicist works or prefers things, but so far the transition at Penguin has been good.
This is such a great feature! I actually really stink at linking up pages for the authors with my review. I use to to do it all the time but I had to start cutting some corners due to time. I tried to figure out the things that wouldn’t be missed so much. And the links were it. I know I usually just google an author anyway and I never click those links, but I’m just one person and my way isn’t everyone else’s. Now that I know that they really appreciate that I’ll see if I can manage to try to get those included again.Candace recently posted..Saturday Situation: Link Up Your Reviews & Give@way’s!

thanks for the fun interview! It’s always fun to find about the “behind the scenes”. Definitely increased my admiration and respect for all that the bloggers and publishers to bring such great books to our attention! Thanks so much!

Again, such a great interview! I haven’t worked with Penguin yet, but I am hoping to someday. I love it when there are answers to questions I didn’t think to ask in the post. Like, I don’t usually put the author links unless it’s a guest post. I do put every single to buy link I can find now including the audio books and the Kobo. Better start including author links!

I don’t think I could pick a favorite Penguin book. I don’t know if NAL is different, but I clicked on the FB links and eventually found Beth Revis’ books, Origins, John Green and Gayle Forman. I think Just One Day has been my favorite book this year though I’ve read a lot of good ones.

Thanks for this great feature! I am learning so much!
Thanks for your time Erin!

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